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The UK response to Covid-19 [MOD WARNING 1ST POST]

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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,105 ✭✭✭✭Leroy42


    Aegir wrote: »

    When did Gove say there would be no issues with PPE?[/QUOTE]

    He isn't going to admit that, but that was the context of the question about the EU procurement was being asked. Hospitals were crying out for PPE, the government were claiming they were doing their best, and then the fact they had refused to join a EU procurement program came to light. He said they could handle it, as an independent nation. If you are having issues, do you refuse help and say you can deal it yourself and then blame others?

    This was a clear opportunity for them to get additional items, which clearly they needed. But they refused. His line about not needing their help is of course a lie, since previously they tried to claim they hadn't received the e-mail so didn't even know about it.

    So we are faced with a government knowingly lying and then claiming that it didn't need help, then failing and your only thing is to say that other countries struggled as well?


  • Posts: 5,853 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Leroy42 wrote: »

    He isn't going to admit that, but that was the context of the question about the EU procurement was being asked. Hospitals were crying out for PPE, the government were claiming they were doing their best, and then the fact they had refused to join a EU procurement program came to light. He said they could handle it, as an independent nation. If you are having issues, do you refuse help and say you can deal it yourself and then blame others?

    This was a clear opportunity for them to get additional items, which clearly they needed. But they refused. His line about not needing their help is of course a lie, since previously they tried to claim they hadn't received the e-mail so didn't even know about it.

    So we are faced with a government knowingly lying and then claiming that it didn't need help, then failing and your only thing is to say that other countries struggled as well?

    Why did you say it then?

    Has the countries that joined the PPE tender been announced, or any deliveries arrived yet?

    Surely someone here must know someone in the HSE that can confirm this either way?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,023 ✭✭✭✭Joe_ Public


    This Tory government is now being disingenuous about its testing targets:

    The government has changed the way it is counting the number of Covid-19 tests carried out, in a bid to hit its self-imposed 100,000 tests per day target, the Health Service Journal reports. Previously, a test would be counted once the sample had been processed in a lab, but this definition has been changed in the last few days, a senior source has told the HSJ. According to the source, the Department of Health and Social Care is now including tests that have been posted or delivered to people’s home in its figures – which means tests that are sent to people are counted before the recipient has done their test and returned their sample to the lab.

    They'll reach the 100,000 today anyway, that's all that matters to some people. They dont ask a lot of questions about how these things are achieved.

    Yesterday they tested 54,000 people. Over 35% of the overall total were retests. That is a lot.

    Testing 50-60,000 a day is a good number all the same. It is strictly only where they should have been weeks ago, but better late than never as the saying goes.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,105 ✭✭✭✭Leroy42


    Aegir wrote: »
    So no other country has an issue with PPE, is that what you are claiming?

    This was your original question.
    Aegir wrote: »
    Why did you say it then?

    Has the countries that joined the PPE tender been announced, or any deliveries arrived yet?

    Surely someone here must know someone in the HSE that can confirm this either way?

    What came out of the procurement is irrelevant, HMG decided well before any of that that it wouldn't take part in it, because there was nothing in it that an independent country cannot do. So, one can assume that the UK were going to do it.

    You are being disingenuous in your argument as you are trying to divorce his statement from the fact that a shortage of PPE was very much a talking point, and the government had been trying to say it was doing everything it could. If you were faced with a shortage, do you try just one shop and then give up?

    Gove was making the point that the government were going got handle this on its own, so you then cannot bring how other countries deal with it. The UK doesn't need other countries, according to Gove.

    And of course it has to be remember that originally Hancock was claiming that no shortage existed at all, merely a logistics issue. They tried to argue that they did indeed have enough but that getting it out to where is was needed was the issue.

    Of course that has been changed to the current line that the world is having problems and so there was nothing the government could actually do about it.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,276 ✭✭✭Memnoch


    AllForIt wrote: »
    The don't necessarily have to care about British people to have an opinion.

    If it's not about who's right and who's wrong then I don't know what it about.

    You don't sound very genuine to me.

    Despite the above, I appreciate your constructive engagement of the substantive issues.
    The extra deaths are due to coronavirus of course?! Negligence isn't really the same as 'willing to let old people die'. I thought old people were their greatest Brexit supporters so why would they shoot themselves in the foot. It seems to me when you consider the criticisms in their entirety they are often contradictory, indicating a tactic that if if you throw enough of them some of them might stick.

    As to the numbers. Considering that the country has been in effective lockdown which reduces the incidences of traffic accidents and many other kinds of fatalities I would say that to only count the excess as attributable to the pandemic could still very well be under counting the numbers.

    Rather than saying due to coronavirus, I would say due to the pandemic and this government's failures in that regard. There are doubtless many people that would have survived but for the scale of the pandemic in the UK which is down to this government's failure to act appropriately at the outset.

    Perhaps you have missed it but it has been brought up numerous times that the attitude of letting old people die is exactly what Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson's right-hand man, has been quoted by the Sunday Times in the UK as having said. Their actions subsequently certainly seem to be in line with this attitude. Of course, they're never going to admit this publicly because that is gentricide. We can only judge them by their actions which in this matter have been quite damning.

    As to their reasoning. We can only speculate. Considering that their economy is expected to be strongly negatively impacted by Brexit they might have considered it preferable to sacrifice the elderly than taking any actions that might be detrimental to their economic outlook. Further, they might have seen it as an opportunity to reduce the financial burden on the state. It can be argued that this also feeds into their small state, low or no effective corporate tax ideology. There've also been numerous instances that indicate that Dominic Cummings is a eugenicist at heart. Of course, the only way we would know for sure would be if there was a proper independent international investigation but the people in power will certainly never allow this to happen.
    Why don't these amazing journalist's make this point at the briefings? If it is so easy to get the true figures by using simple math then why are the gov trying to downplay figures when they can be so easily caught out.

    If you are saying that there has been a lack of journalistic oversight and accountability of this administration and of the Tory administration over the last 10 years, in the British press, then I would certainly agree. Further, we have seen evidence of this government's hostility to journalistic accountability in the way that they have refused to engage with critical press and systematically neutered the BBC over the past 10 years.

    I find it completely shocking to see even this level of journalistic scrutiny of this government from the right-wing press considering that they had been given a free pass and for the past 10 years. For even the right wing press to be this critical, suggests the scale and intensity of this government's negligence/wrong-doing.

    The government are trying to downplay the figures to simply avoid any real accountability. No matter how obvious their lie they can stand behind it and claim only the official number. Who is going to hold him accountable when they are in power?

    Right now, the debate centers on what the actual number is rather than how 20,000+ elderly people have been allowed to perish in this manner. Which is precisely the intent of this administration.
    There has been difficulty is sourcing PPE because every country on the planet want's them at the same time. Because they couldn't get them does not mean there was absolute no plan. You could argue there plan wasn't good enough but you can't say they had no plan.

    What exactly was this mythical plan? Medics speaking out about the lack of PPE were threatened with adverse consequences for their careers. This government repeatedly lied about PPE continuing to claim throughout that this was adequate even as doctors, nurses, care staff and nursing homes were shouting themselves hoarse that they were being left utterly exposed. For you to pivot to this idea of there being a difficulty sourcing them is not an argument this government was making when they were saying that they had enough and that it was only a matter of logistics, ferrying it around the country, which was clearly a lie.

    Further, how many doctors and elderly have lost their lives in all these other countries that you are talking about? And now we are back again to the question of numbers and the motivation for this government to obfuscate them.

    It is a convenient get out to say that PPE is in demand throughout. And while this is true there is a stark difference in the scale of damage in many different countries. Again, how many doctors have died in Germany, Norway, Denmark, Ireland, Canada? I would be surprised if the total number of medics having lost their lives in all of these countries is greater than what has happened in the UK alone.

    I will ask again, what was this government's plan to protect the elderly population during this pandemic? When was this plan implemented? Beyond simply words. Why are there 20,000+ elderly people dead in care homes in the UK? Why are these numbers not being replicated everywhere else in the world?

    Yes, overall, there have been failings in many other countries when it comes to protecting the elderly during this pandemic. But what has happened in the UK is of a scale that is not being seen elsewhere other than a handful of countries and countries in the developing world like Brazil where the leadership has simply refused to acknowledge the problem even exists.
    Germany does not have a healthcare system comparable to the UK. For starters.

    This is an incredibly weak argument. The conservative party have been in power for the past 10 years. They are also refusing to publish the pandemic plan that was prepared in 2016. Most likely this would lay bare their extreme negligence in the matter. This again continues a pattern of lies, distortion and suppression of information that might be used to hold them accountable.
    I know how left wingers would react to it and that would be shur it was the governments fault not investing enough in deradicalization, taking focus off the terrorists, in exactly the same way you're taking focus off the virus for all the deaths and blaming all the deaths on the government.

    Considering the government's approach, does not preclude prosecuting terrorists. I would very much want anyone responsible for this scale of death to be held accountable. I would not agree with demonizing and profiling an entire section of the population or religion because of the actions of a small minority. Just as I would not be asking for Tory voters to be profiled or punished for the actions of Boris Johnson and his administration. Again, the willingness to turn a blind eye to what this administration has done is something I cannot understand. Regardless of anybody's politics. I would be equally critical if this were labor or any other party. For example, I believe Tony Blair is a war criminal who belongs behind bars even though I had been a big supporter of his administration initially.
    The UK only left the EU 3 months ago. I don't see being part of the EU did anything to alleviate the effects of a pandemic.

    Well, this administration spurned every opportunity to cooperate with the EU in procuring ventilators, PPE etc. It's impossible to know how much this could have mitigated the situation but I would suspect that bargaining as a block of 500 million people gives you greater leverage in trying to procure PPE than trying to go it alone.
    I have to say I found the whole tone of your post to have a superior attitude to it and you hardly made a single unique point for all the text.

    I sincerely apologize for any condescension in my tone or impression of a superior attitude. Thank you once more for your substantive engagement.


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  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 24,146 Mod ✭✭✭✭robinph


    Jeeez, that's really stretching the justification of incompetence to the max. When we order boxes of gloves, gowns, aprons, masks, whatever, we order boxes; and when we count our stock, we count boxes; and when we give it out to staff members, we give out boxes.

    Only the most autistic bean-counter, scraping the very bottom of the barrel of penny-saving excuses counts individual gloves. Depending on what I'm doing on any particular day, I could go through a box of 100 gloves in a morning ... and I have a reputation in my workplace(s) for being extremely frugal.

    And you are being equally extreme in your belief that there is some conspiracy behind it. First reports about the shipment were talking in tonnes of stuff being delivered as far as I recall, I guess some reporter then asked what was in the boxes and they were told some gloves and aprons and do dahs, to which someone else then asked how many do dahs is that, someone then found an Excel spreadsheet of the shipment and added up column E and read the number at the bottom without noticing anything about aprons having to be used in 1s, gloves in 2s and do dahs in 3s.

    There is no conspiracy, just someone added up a column in a spreadsheet of the details for a shipment and read out the answer.

    Edit: I note that you used 100 gloves in a morning rather than 50 pairs. Why did you use the bigger number, trying to make it sound more impressive, or is that just how boxes of gloves are counted?


  • Moderators, Politics Moderators Posts: 43,413 Mod ✭✭✭✭Seth Brundle


    robinph wrote: »
    I doubt that was an intentional miscounting, it's just the way that gloves are sold:

    https://flusupplies.com/products/latex-powder-free-gloves-box-of-100?gclid=Cj0KCQjwka_1BRCPARIsAMlUmEoGSTpD8xXrnHPoIHCBdTWMBnjc-cBcqCvURXMJYLJnp0BJwF1KJ5IaAqsoEALw_wcB

    The UK Government then just neglected to divide the number by two in order to get pairs, rather than that they multiplied a different number by two.
    Given that the British government are including the likes of paper towels, waste bags and cleaning products in the PPE numbers you can't help but assume that they are deliberately trying to disguise the numbers to hide the fact that they failed to procure enough stocks for an emergency.


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 24,146 Mod ✭✭✭✭robinph


    Given that the British government are including the likes of paper towels, waste bags and cleaning products in the PPE numbers you can't help but assume that they are deliberately trying to disguise the numbers to hide the fact that they failed to procure enough stocks for an emergency.

    How is providing the numbers of items being sourced trying to hide things?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,088 ✭✭✭✭BonnieSituation


    Jeeez, that's really stretching the justification of incompetence to the max. When we order boxes of gloves, gowns, aprons, masks, whatever, we order boxes; and when we count our stock, we count boxes; and when we give it out to staff members, we give out boxes.

    Only the most autistic bean-counter, scraping the very bottom of the barrel of penny-saving excuses counts individual gloves. Depending on what I'm doing on any particular day, I could go through a box of 100 gloves in a morning ... and I have a reputation in my workplace(s) for being extremely frugal.

    I knew there was Cavan or Derry blood in you.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,088 ✭✭✭✭BonnieSituation


    Aegir wrote: »
    Why did you say it then?

    Has the countries that joined the PPE tender been announced, or any deliveries arrived yet?

    Surely someone here must know someone in the HSE that can confirm this either way?

    Who cares.

    This is the UK response to the Covid 19 pandemic thread.

    You must be at your whataboutery limit for the day surely?


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  • Moderators, Politics Moderators Posts: 43,413 Mod ✭✭✭✭Seth Brundle


    robinph wrote: »
    How is providing the numbers of items being sourced trying to hide things?
    They are trying to hide the fact they they did not procure sufficient supplies of PPE by including items that would not be regarded as PPE.
    They didn't reveal this up front, Panorama "exposed it. It's yet another attempt by HMG to create a better picture that is the case.
    I'd be curious to know if they counted each paper towel individually.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,831 ✭✭✭theological


    Who cares.

    This is the UK response to the Covid 19 pandemic thread.

    You must be at your whataboutery limit for the day surely?


    It is the UK response thread, but it is also important that the criticism is reasonable. If for example several countries right across Europe have struggled with the supply and distribution of PPE that's relevant to this discussion. If other countries have struggled with the spread of the virus in care homes that is relevant to the discussion.


    The sad reality is that the UK has basically followed the same trajectory of large European countries with the exception of Germany which has done phenomenally well.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,105 ✭✭✭✭Leroy42


    robinph wrote: »
    How is providing the numbers of items being sourced trying to hide things?

    You can't be this guilable?

    You think that they provided the numbers because they wanted to or that the numbers they did provide were accurate?

    Why do yu think they went 6 weeks not publishing the true death figures? Because it was hard to calculate? Come on, they needed to keep the number down as long as possible to avoid questions. Then immediately be able to claim that the numbers were reducing so, yeah sure, we lied about the numbers, but things are getting better so lets forget about the last and look to the future.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,299 ✭✭✭CelticRambler


    robinph wrote: »
    And you are being equally extreme in your belief that there is some conspiracy behind it.

    <snip>

    There is no conspiracy, just someone added up a column in a spreadsheet of the details for a shipment and read out the answer.

    Who said anything about a conspiracy? My point is that anyone (politician or journalist or contributor to a boards.ie discussion) getting into a twist over exactly how many individual disposable items are contained in a delivery - or even that this level of detail makes the news - is utterly ridiculous when there's a pandemic in full swing and the supposed leaders are still trying to catch up with where they should have been two months ago.

    robinph wrote: »
    Edit: I note that you used 100 gloves in a morning rather than 50 pairs. Why did you use the bigger number, trying to make it sound more impressive, or is that just how boxes of gloves are counted?

    Seeing as you ask, I used "100" as the number because that's the number printed on the side of the box. I don't think I have ever (ever, in thirty years) actually counted the number of gloves I use. But while we're on the subject, neither do I (or anyone I work with) count them in pairs. For a single case (which may be a patient or the samples coming from same) sometimes I'll use one, sometimes two, sometimes three, sometimes four ... it's akin to counting the number of peas you'd serve someone for dinner. :rolleyes:


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,088 ✭✭✭✭BonnieSituation


    It is the UK response thread, but it is also important that the criticism is reasonable. If for example several countries right across Europe have struggled with the supply and distribution of PPE that's relevant to this discussion. If other countries have struggled with the spread of the virus in care homes that is relevant to the discussion.


    The sad reality is that the UK has basically followed the same trajectory of large European countries with the exception of Germany which has done phenomenally well.
    Other countries didn't lie about refusing help though with an ever changing story as the lies got exposed.

    That's relevant to the discussion, yet bringing it up means we have to go through rounds of whataboutery and straw men and tangential rubbish because it hurts our resident Brits' feelings.

    And on and on and on and Ariston...


  • Moderators, Politics Moderators Posts: 43,413 Mod ✭✭✭✭Seth Brundle


    The sad reality is that the UK has basically followed the same trajectory of large European countries with the exception of Germany which has done phenomenally well.
    It is my understanding that France, Italy and Spain all include suspected cases in their numbers and not limited to those who tested positive.
    So, in that regard the UK has suffered significantly more that those other European countries being near fifty thousand deaths.


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 24,146 Mod ✭✭✭✭robinph



    Seeing as you ask, I used "100" as the number because that's the number printed on the side of the box. I don't think I have ever (ever, in thirty years) actually counted the number of gloves I use. But while we're on the subject, neither do I (or anyone I work with) count them in pairs. For a single case (which may be a patient or the samples coming from same) sometimes I'll use one, sometimes two, sometimes three, sometimes four ... it's akin to counting the number of peas you'd serve someone for dinner. :rolleyes:

    Precisely.

    So why are people getting all upset that they published a number of gloves in the shipment rather than the number of pairs of gloves in the shipment?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,105 ✭✭✭✭Leroy42


    robinph wrote: »
    Precisely.

    So why are people getting all upset that they published a number of gloves in the shipment rather than the number of pairs of gloves in the shipment?

    Because you have to ask yourself why? WHy would the change the usual way of counting these types of items?

    Would it be more advantageous to talk about single gloves rather than pairs, given that people need two gloves.

    When one looks at the context of them giving the number, ie that there was a lack of PPE and the government had not done enough to get PPE to front line workers who were in danger of catching the virus as a direct result.

    Given that, can you begin to see a motivation behind making the numbers appear more than they really are?

    And this from a minister who did the exact same thing with nursing numbers before the election. And a government that went 6 weeks failing to provide accurate numbers of deaths because it was difficult to calculate.


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 24,146 Mod ✭✭✭✭robinph


    Leroy42 wrote: »
    Because you have to ask yourself why? WHy would the change the usual way of counting these types of items?

    Would it be more advantageous to talk about single gloves rather than pairs, given that people need two gloves.

    When one looks at the context of them giving the number, ie that there was a lack of PPE and the government had not done enough to get PPE to front line workers who were in danger of catching the virus as a direct result.

    Given that, can you begin to see a motivation behind making the numbers appear more than they really are?

    And this from a minister who did the exact same thing with nursing numbers before the election. And a government that went 6 weeks failing to provide accurate numbers of deaths because it was difficult to calculate.

    Think you may have missed the previous posts where it was confirmed by CelticRambler that the normal way of counting gloves was individually, or at least by the 100 per box and not 50 pairs in a box.

    What is the motivation in trying to make out that they miscounted something when the far simpler explanation is that they just read how many boxes they had and multiplied by the number of items written on the side of the box in order to answer someone elses question about how many items they had received?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,023 ✭✭✭✭Joe_ Public


    Interesting numbers in relation to tests (i thought anyway).

    Yesterday Scotland total tests 4,661 which involved 4,187 people.

    Uk overall 81,611 tests for 54,575 people.

    So Scotland had a 10% retest figure while overall uk had 35%.

    It may be that tests posted out and counted in overall explains that big discrepancy but hard to say because i think that gap between overall tests and people tested has always seemed quite big.

    Some clarification on this would be helpful but doubt anyone will ask at the briefing today.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,299 ✭✭✭CelticRambler


    Leroy42 wrote: »
    Because you have to ask yourself why? WHy would the change the usual way of counting these types of items?

    Would it be more advantageous to talk about single gloves rather than pairs, given that people need two gloves.

    I will admit to having missed whatever it was in the wider world that sent people off this particular tangent, but there's only one circumstance that I know of in which anyone in healthcare would spare a fraction of a second to think about the number of gloves in a box, and that's when the intern or work-experience student is told to order "a hundred" and orders one box of 100 instead of one hundred boxes. That happens from time to time.

    Honestly, it is utterly ridiculous to be arguing over whether a government response was appropriate or not based on whether someone uses one glove or two. They are not fashion items, they are not worn in pairs, and nobody gives a damn about them as long as they're within reach when you need them and they fit properly. Whoever's trawling through those spread sheets looking for that kind of error would be better off signing up for the team of contact tracers.


  • Posts: 5,853 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Who cares.

    This is the UK response to the Covid 19 pandemic thread.

    You must be at your whataboutery limit for the day surely?

    You obviously care.

    It is relevant because it confirms if not joining the combined tenders was the correct decision. A decision several other countries made as well.


  • Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 11,885 Mod ✭✭✭✭devnull


    Looks like the UK are going to hit the target for 100,000 tests a day now, by changing the way the test numbers are counted to include tests that have been sent out which have not yet been performed, rather than by actual numbers of tests completed.

    From the Health Service Journal;
    https://www.hsj.co.uk/story.aspx?storyCode=7027544
    The government has changed the way it is counting the number of covid-19 tests carried out in a bid to hit its target of 100,000 tests per day by the end of April, HSJ can reveal.

    Previously, a test would be counted once the sample had been processed in laboratories. But this definition has been changed in the last few days, a senior source told HSJ.

    The Department of Health and Social Care is now including tests that have been posted or delivered to people’s homes in its figures. This means tests which are sent to people are counted before the recipient has provided and returned their sample to a laboratory.

    Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,080 ✭✭✭✭VinLieger


    devnull wrote: »
    Looks like the UK are going to hit the target for 100,000 tests a day now, by changing the way the test numbers are counted to include tests that have been sent out which have not yet been performed, rather than by actual numbers of tests completed.

    From the Health Service Journal;
    https://www.hsj.co.uk/story.aspx?storyCode=7027544



    Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics.


    Be very curious to know if they will then double count these when they arrive at the labs, if not they will have to eventually see a large fall off in tests by precounting them in this disingenuous manner


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,383 ✭✭✭S.M.B.


    In the grand scheme of things, I'm not that bothered by the fact that tests being sent out are being included in the daily figure. Does it paint a slightly better picture in terms of meeting this arbitrary goal? I guess so, but they have to be counted at some stage. Prior to home tests were tests only included in this number once complete or when administered I wonder?

    I just hope that they are not sending out ~50,000 home tests a day with the ability to only process ~5,000 of them when they start arriving, then I'll get a bit more outraged.


  • Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 11,885 Mod ✭✭✭✭devnull


    VinLieger wrote: »
    Be very curious to know if they will then double count these when they arrive at the labs, if not they will have to eventually see a large fall off in tests by precounting them in this disingenuous manner

    Pretty sure originally they said they would be performing 100,000 a day.

    Instead it seems they now will be saying they will be arranging or performing a total of 100,000 a day and masking an assumption that everyone does them the same day that they are arranged.

    Funny how parts of the British Government have spent time saying we shouldn't make assumptions to arrive at numbers and instead we should look at hard and proven numbers but when the hard and proven numbers don't look big enough, they start adding assumptions to make them look bigger.

    Exactly the same way how they started using the graphs of number of deaths of proof that their approach was working when they were not far higher than other European countries, but suddenly decided the data they trusted was not trustworthy anymore when the graphs started to paint a negative picture.

    No doubt the usual people will then attack the media for exploiting blatant dishonesty from the British Government of changing how data is collated when the original collection method because it might paint the Government in a less than positive light. Then again, even some of the most evil people in history came to power by hoodwinking the public who thought they were right, so we shouldn't be too surprised.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,301 ✭✭✭✭A Dub in Glasgo


    S.M.B. wrote: »
    In the grand scheme of things, I'm not that bothered by the fact that tests being sent out are being included in the daily figure. Does it paint a slightly better picture in terms of meeting this arbitrary goal? I guess so, but they have to be counted at some stage. Prior to home tests were tests only included in this number once complete or when administered I wonder?

    I just hope that they are not sending out ~50,000 home tests a day with the ability to only process ~5,000 of them when they start arriving, then I'll get a bit more outraged.

    That assumes that they get all the tests back. It is crazy to count tests not completed in the tests completed metric... but I guess I am not a spin doctor


  • Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 11,885 Mod ✭✭✭✭devnull


    S.M.B. wrote: »
    In the grand scheme of things, I'm not that bothered by the fact that tests being sent out are being included in the daily figure. Does it paint a slightly better picture in terms of meeting this arbitrary goal? I guess so, but they have to be counted at some stage. Prior to home tests were tests only included in this number once complete or when administered I wonder?

    The British Government are hypocrites. They keep talking about how things need to be evidence led rather than based on assumptions, but when the evidence does not paint the picture they want it to, they start to make assumptions Essentially they redraw the rules and add conditions and changes how statistics are arrived at on a regular basis if it will help make them look better or at least less bad. They also assume that everyone who is sent a test does it the same day, again, based on an assumption that they did, despite being the fact they've said things should be based on evidence, not assumptions.

    The original target was that they would perform 100,000 tests a day, it was not saying that they would not perform or arrange 100,000 tests a day. Tests which are sent out are not ones that are performed, so by their own criteria they have failed but because they couldn't be frank and honest about this with the public, they've decided to change their methodology as well because they are more concerned with approval ratings than transparency.

    The fact that the British Government and honesty and transparency being such strange bedfellows would be a problem for me, but I understand that some people don't see dishonesty as being that much of a bad thing and of course there are some people who also suffer from pseudologia fantastica in politics around the world like Trump who just care about self preservation and their own interest rather than being open and honest with people. I know others may disagree but I don't think the Tories are suffering from pseudologia fantastica, just self preservation to the point where it has become compulsive.

    Johnson could have come out tonight and said that we didn't hit the target, but we're getting closer and from now on we will be presenting the number of tests in a different way. But that would be far too transparent. Better obfuscate the fact that they realised they wouldn't hit the target and changed the way the data was collected to give a different impression because that would be more politically beneficial.

    Unfortunately in the leadership in the UK, it always has been political interest before people and transparency, every step of the way and the sad thing is that some people are gullible enough to fall for it.


  • Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 11,885 Mod ✭✭✭✭devnull


    That assumes that they get all the tests back. It is crazy to count tests not completed in the tests completed metric... but I guess I am not a spin doctor

    Indeed and it also goes against their mantra that their numbers and decisions are not based on assumptions but are evidence led* unlike other peoples.

    * - as long as the evidence goes their way.


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  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 24,146 Mod ✭✭✭✭robinph


    Couldn't care less if they are sending out or processing 100,000 tests a day or if they are only doing 80k. Totally irrelevant unless you are the leader of the opposition and have run out of other problems to hit the party in power with.

    The important thing is that tests are available and being processed for those who need them. A number being reached means nothing.

    It matters that other NHS services are being restored, it matters that tests are available and it matters that the results are quick and accurate.


This discussion has been closed.
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